Short answer: Guest checkout keeps the sale but leaves you with an anonymous order. Required accounts give you a known customer but cost sales: 18% of US online shoppers who abandoned a checkout say the site wanted them to create an account (Baymard, updated Oct 28, 2026). Accelerated checkout avoids the trade-off. A shopper who already has an account in a checkout network is recognized by email and checks out in one click, even on their first visit to your store, and the store keeps the shopper's name, email and other information as its own customer.
The trade-off every checkout team inherits
Most enterprise checkouts offer two doors: "Sign in" and "Continue as guest." Each one solves a problem and creates another.
Guest checkout removes the biggest barrier at the moment of purchase. The shopper types an email, a shipping address and a card, and pays. The cost shows up later. A guest order is harder to tie to a customer profile, so personalization, loyalty and lifetime value reporting all have less to work with. The next time that shopper comes back, they type everything again.
Store accounts give you the relationship: order history, saved addresses, marketing consent and a clean customer record. The cost shows up right away. Creating an account means a password and more fields before the shopper has paid. Signing in later means remembering that password, on a device that may not have it saved.
Baymard Institute's research puts numbers on the friction:
- Among US online shoppers who abandoned a checkout, 18% say the site wanted them to create an account. That is the fourth most common reason, behind extra costs, slow delivery and trust in the site with card details [B1].
- Baymard's 2026 benchmark heading reads "Save Account Creation for the Confirmation Step (56% Don't)." Its testing found that delayed account creation performed better than asking at the start or during checkout [B2].
- Baymard's average documented cart abandonment rate is 70.22%, across 50 studies [B1].
So the common advice is: keep guest checkout, make it prominent, and offer an account after the order. That's sound advice. It still leaves most first-time shoppers anonymous and makes every returning guest start from zero.
What accelerated checkout changes
Accelerated checkout moves the account from your store to a network the shopper already belongs to. When a shopper enters an email, the checkout checks whether that shopper has an account in the network. If they do, they confirm with a one-time code and their saved address and payment details fill in. If they don't, they check out as they would as a guest, and they can create a network account in the same flow.
That changes the question from "guest or account?" to "how many of my shoppers are already recognized?" For a store on a large network, a meaningful share of first-time visitors arrive with an account already, so they get the speed of guest checkout with the recognition of a signed-in customer.
Bolt's one-click network has over 100 million shoppers. Bolt account holders convert 50% better than guest shoppers (Bolt internal tests and data).
How we compared the three options
We compared guest checkout, store accounts and accelerated checkout on six criteria that matter to an ecommerce or payments leader:
- Friction at checkout. What the shopper has to do before paying.
- Returning-shopper experience. What happens on the second visit, and on another device.
- Recognition of first-time visitors. Whether a shopper new to your store can be recognized at all.
- Customer data you keep. Whether the store keeps the shopper's name, email and other information as its own customer, to market to and analyze.
- Processor dependency. Whether the option requires a specific payment processor.
- Implementation. What it takes to add, and whether it replaces your existing checkout.
Comparison table
| Guest checkout | Store account | Accelerated checkout (network account) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Friction at checkout | Low on the first order: email, address, card | Highest: password and extra fields before payment, unless creation is delayed to confirmation [B2] | Low: email, then a one-time code for recognized shoppers |
| Returning shoppers | Re-enter everything | Fast if they remember the password and are on the same store | Recognized on any store in the network, on any device, by email |
| First-time visitors | Anonymous | Must create an account to be recognized | Recognized if they already have a network account |
| Customer data you keep | Email and order; harder to link to a profile | Full customer record | With Bolt, the store keeps the shopper's name, email and other information as its own customer (varies by provider) |
| Processor dependency | None | None | Varies by provider (see below) |
| Main risk | Lost relationship and repeat speed | Lost sales: 18% of abandoning shoppers cite account creation [B1] | Value depends on network reach on your traffic |
Choosing an accelerated checkout
Several companies offer accelerated checkout, and the main structural difference for enterprise teams is the processor:
- Fastlane by PayPal requires card processing with PayPal, on PayPal's Orders v2 API [P1].
- Shop Pay requires Shopify Payments to accept Shop Pay payments, including on stores not built on Shopify [S1].
- Stripe Link is Stripe's wallet and works with Stripe's checkout products, so Link payments run on Stripe [L1].
- Bolt works with Bolt Payments or your existing processor. Stripe is supported as a payment processor, and PayPal is offered as an alternative payment method within Bolt Hosted Checkout. Bolt runs on Shopify (through Bolt's hosted checkout), Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce, WooCommerce and custom stacks via API / Embeddable Checkout.
If you're also weighing these by platform and fraud coverage, our PayPal Fastlane alternatives for enterprise guide and our one-click checkout providers comparison go provider by provider, with sources.
Each company reports its own network size and conversion figures. The honest test is recognition rate and conversion on your own traffic, split by new and returning shoppers.
Do you still need guest checkout and store accounts?
Usually yes, and accelerated checkout doesn't remove them.
- Keep guest checkout for shoppers who aren't in the network and don't want an account. Make it easy to find.
- Keep store accounts for loyalty, order history and service. The difference is that you no longer need them to do the work of making checkout fast.
- Ask for the account after the order, on the confirmation page, as Baymard recommends [B2]. A shopper who just checked out in one click is more likely to say yes than one facing a password field before paying.
What changes is the default path. Instead of a choice between two doors, the shopper types an email and the checkout decides: recognized shoppers go straight to one click, everyone else continues as a guest.
What this looks like with Bolt
Bolt recognizes shoppers by email across its network of over 100 million shoppers, then fills in saved details for one-click checkout. Shoppers who aren't recognized can create a Bolt account in the same flow, and the store keeps the shopper's name, email and other information as its own customer. Bolt account holders convert 50% better than guest shoppers, based on Bolt internal tests and data. Two customer results, as reported by Bolt:
- REVOLVE: a 10% lift in checkout conversion and 4% higher revenue.
- FWRD: a 9.92% conversion lift in a mobile A/B test, November to December 2023 (case study).
Bolt also offers a conversion guarantee: a 10–20% conversion rate lift, guaranteed. How it works: if you don't get the results you like, you can terminate at any time and get out of any lock-in contracts. It is not a money-back guarantee. Implementation typically takes between a few days and a few weeks.
On fraud, Bolt covers 100% of fraud chargebacks on approved orders with Total Fraud Protection, on qualifying transactions under your Bolt agreement. Total Fraud Protection works with Bolt Payments and approved third-party processors.
You can see the shopper flow in the interactive checkout demo.
A practical rollout for an enterprise team
- Measure the baseline. Split checkout conversion by guest, signed-in and new-account orders, and by mobile and desktop. Record how many orders come from returning customers who checked out as guests.
- Fix the guest path first. Make guest checkout the most visible option and move account creation to the confirmation page. These are low-cost changes regardless of what you add next.
- Pick an accelerated checkout that fits your processor and platform. Changing processors is a larger project than changing checkout. Check the requirements above against your contracts.
- Run it as an A/B test. Measure recognition rate, conversion and revenue per visitor for new and returning shoppers separately, on the same traffic split.
- Decide on the store account's role. With checkout speed handled, the account can focus on loyalty, service and post-purchase.
Sources (all read November 9, 2026):
- [B1] Baymard Institute, "Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics," updated Oct 28, 2026. https://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate (18% "The site wanted me to create an account"; 70.22% average across 50 studies, 2006–2025. The page states no sample size or fieldwork date for the reasons survey.)
- [B2] Baymard Institute, Edward Scott, "Current State of Checkout UX," published Nov 13, 2024, updated Nov 3, 2026. https://baymard.com/blog/current-state-of-checkout-ux (section "Save Account Creation for the Confirmation Step (56% Don't)"; delayed account creation "performed better.")
- [P1] PayPal Developer, "Integrate Fastlane," last updated Oct 14, 2026. https://developer.paypal.com/docs/multiparty/checkout/fastlane/integrate/ ("You must process card payments with PayPal"; Orders v2.)
- [S1] Shopify Help Center, "Shop Pay on any platform" (undated). https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/payments/shop-pay/shop-pay-on-any-platform (activate Shopify Payments to accept Shop Pay.)
- [L1] Stripe Docs, "Link" (undated). https://docs.stripe.com/payments/link (works with Checkout, Payment Links, Elements and Invoicing; settles to the Stripe balance.)
FAQ
What is the difference between guest checkout and an account?
Guest checkout lets a shopper pay without signing in or creating a password. An account stores their details for next time and ties orders to a customer record. Guest checkout has less friction on the first order; accounts make later orders faster and give the store a customer record.
Should you disable guest checkout?
Generally no. Baymard's research finds 18% of US shoppers who abandoned a checkout cite being asked to create an account. Most stores keep guest checkout, make it prominent, and offer an account on the confirmation page instead. Accelerated checkout can recognize many shoppers before they choose either.
Is guest checkout safe for shoppers?
Guest checkout uses the same payment processing as a signed-in checkout, so the card is handled the same way. The difference is convenience: a guest re-enters details each time, and the store has less order history to reference when it reviews an order.
What is accelerated checkout?
Accelerated checkout recognizes a shopper from an account they already have in a checkout network, usually by email and a one-time code, then fills in their saved address and payment details. The shopper skips both account creation and manual entry, even on their first visit to a store.
What is the best guest checkout solution for an enterprise store?
Keep a prominent guest option, then add accelerated checkout so recognized shoppers skip the forms. Choose by processor first: Fastlane needs PayPal card processing, Shop Pay needs Shopify Payments and Link runs on Stripe. Bolt works with Bolt Payments or your existing processor, including Stripe. Test on your own traffic.
How do you increase account creation without adding friction?
Ask after the order, not before. Baymard found account creation on the confirmation step performs better than at the start or during checkout. A network account created during accelerated checkout also counts: the shopper is recognized next time on your store and others in the network.
Talk to Bolt
If you run a US store on Shopify, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Adobe Commerce, BigCommerce, WooCommerce or a custom stack, we can walk through how accelerated checkout would work with your platform and processor, and how to test it against your current checkout. Contact sales.
PayPal and Fastlane are trademarks of PayPal, Inc. Shop Pay and Shopify are trademarks of Shopify Inc. Stripe and Link are trademarks of Stripe, Inc. Bolt is not affiliated with or endorsed by these companies.